I love the cover. It is orange, pink, burgandy and brown…which you will not believe looks beautiful until you see it…

It was written by Brenda Tassava, and she is great. She is the Director of Operations for Broad Ripple Veterinary Management Solutions and practice manager for TWO veterinary practices and a dog-training facility and a daycare for fellow veterinary team members (How cool is that??) in Indianapolis.

I am in the resource section as a veterinary professional to follow on twitter (@Finch93). Woo! You forgot to tell me that Brenda! What a fun surprise!

And of course, I love this book for all the right reasons too…

I LOVE resources written especially for veterinary professionals, but I really think this book could have been called Social Media, as it is a great resource for any individual or business trying to start or progress in social media.

Second Edition Idea: Call the book Social Media. When veterinary professionals say the title out loud (As we all will no doubt be doing as we tell everyone how great it is) we can pause for two beats as a nod to the author for originally writing it for us. (Example: “So I was studying Social Media……….. and thought this point was interesting.” Then our friend can ask “Why the big pause?” and we can tell them that one joke…or tell them the truth – that the book was originally written for veterinary professionals but was too good not to share.)

I have avoided buying any social media books as it seems by the very nature of social media that by the time a book is published, it would be outdated, not because of outdated content, but because social media changes so quickly. This book acknowledges and overcomes this problem by describing concepts and ideas, not specific details on how <twitter> works right now, because all of us who use <twitter> know that that will change tomorrow.

I received the book in the mail as a gift from Brenda today (Thank you Brenda! A Real Life handwritten note is on its way to you!) and read it from cover to cover this afternoon. It is a quick, fun read. I only paused to jump up at page 22 to grab my notebook and pen when I realized I should be writing down all of the great things I was learning!

My circles seem to consist mainly of pet lovers/experts and social media lovers/experts (with huge areas of overlap!) so please read this book, and then tell me what you think! YES you can borrow my copy – heaven knows you have loaned me enough of your books!

I am SO tempted to tell you what I learned and how I plan on applying it, and I will, but I think that deserves its own post or series of posts. For now I will say if you are on the internet (which you obviously are! :)) you NEED this book. You will love it, and you will greatly benefit from its contents.

Bunny Trails: I will make sure I am following on facebook and twitter all of the veterinary professionals listed in the resourses sections of the book. Since I started using twitter, one of my strange (and super fun and rewarding) habits has been collecting veterinarians. I am also trying to figure out how to help my veterinary hospital thrive on facebook and have been observing other awesome hospitals as they do just that. It will be fun to “meet” some new veterinary teams from Brenda’s lists.

I have four pages of action points written down after my first read through of the book. I will keep you posted on how I apply what I have learned and am learning from Social Media for Veterinary Professionals. I am excited to get started…I may even give Four Square another try. ;)